


Unreasonable Silence

by Woland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Historical References, Holocaust, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, TW: references to mass murder, tw: references to Nazi atrocities, tw: references to murder of children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24457702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: Aziraphale hasn't seen Crowley for almost two years since the church bombing. Then suddenly the demon is barging into his bookshop, drunk and upset, begging the angel to kill him.The title of the story comes from the following quote by Albert Camus: "Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	Unreasonable Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Another story idea that's been brewing for a while. I figured, since I got one of my WIPs finished, I could afford to throw a new one into the mix :)

There’s a hidden backroom in Aziraphale’s bookshop. It hasn’t existed two months prior. It exists now.

There are no windows and only a single door that isn’t visible to a human eye. Its walls are reinforced with magic, and no sound escapes from it to the outside. There’s a small bathroom in the far corner and a table by the door with a candle that never burns down and a bowl of food that keeps getting replenished. And the entire floor area from the door to the bathroom is taken up by cots. Small cots, big cots, bunk cots and single cots, each one occupied. Every day the room grows a little bit bigger.

~*~

He doesn’t see Crowley for almost 2 years after the church bombing. He had invited him for a drink right after, but Crowley declined. Had an assignment near the Polish town of Oświęcim that he was due to report for, he’d said. But he did promise to take Aziraphale up on his offer when he came back.

When Crowley staggers into the bookshop many months later, that drink invitation becomes a moot point because the demon is already sloshed. Drunker than Aziraphale has ever seen him. He’s clad in a badly rumpled grey Nazi uniform with a skull cap badge and a similar skull insignia on the right collar tab. His glasses are nowhere in sight.

“Death camps, angel. Fuckin’… fuckin’ _T-todeslagers_. H…heard of ‘em?”

He’s swaying on his feet, squinting at Aziraphale from under his cap’s visor, and Aziraphale can’t help flicking his gaze up to the skull badge shining above it. He’s seen this insignia before in the photographs tagged on to some quite disturbing news reports on the Nazi activities in Eastern Europe. He can’t say he’s surprised that Crowley’s been thrown into the thick of it. Makes sense that Hell would want to keep tabs and, perhaps, even encourage wartime atrocities. (What he can’t quite understand is why his side seems strangely mute on the subject, why’s been told explicitly by Gabriel to stay out of it.) 

Crowley follows his gaze, his eyes moving sluggishly up to stare at the shiny black strip of plastic that juts out above them. An expression of utter disgust twists his features and he grabs clumsily for the visor and yanks the cap off his head. Throws it across the room with such vicious force that it knocks a precariously balanced pile of books off the nearby table.

“Train…trainloads of people just… they just….”

He gestures wildly, arm shooting out to the side, leaving him momentarily overbalanced, and Aziraphale rushes forward to steady the teetering demon before he hits the floor. The angel grunts as Crowley sags into him, the demon’s legs going out from under him as if whatever strings that have been holding him up got severed with one abrupt stroke.

“Kids,” Crowley slurs, the stench of alcohol so thick on his breath Aziraphale nearly chokes with it. Wide yellow eyes stare up at him, glassy and pained. “They’re gassin’… gassin’ kids, angel. I–”

“I think you should sit down, my dear.” Carefully Aziraphale readjusts his grip. Guides Crowley to the couch, lowering the surprisingly pliant demon down onto the cushions. “Now then…” He squats in front of Crowley, gently places his hands on the bony knees, frowning worriedly as Crowley flinches at the touch. “Do you think you could sober up for me?”

Crowley squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. “Needa be drunk fer this.”

“For what?”

Crowley swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down along the thin long neck. “Kill me,” he asks, peeling his eyes open once again to stare pleadingly at the angel, and Aziraphale is dismayed to see tears glistening on the red edges of his eyelashes. “Please.”

The shock of the statement momentarily renders him speechless. He stills, breath bated, fingers digging subconsciously into Crowley’s knees.

“W…what?”

Crowley’s eyes are tired, red-rimmed pools of liquid amber underneath the anguished arc of his eyebrows. “I can’t… can’t watch it a…anymore, angel,” he blurts out, sounding so broken, so horrifyingly defeated that Aziraphale feels his own heart twinge sharply in sympathetic worry. “Can’t sssstand it. S’worse than the Flood. Worse than… worse….” He trails off, eyes momentarily losing focus. Spits out hoarsely, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists at his sides. “Thousands of people, angel. Every… every day. They gas ‘em… an’ then they burn the bodies and then … and then a new train comes in and…. And I’m su… ssupp’ssed t’… watch .”

Aziraphale thinks back to the news articles he’s read the other day. The London _Times_ , the New York _Journal American_ , the _Los Angeles Times_ …. The shocking headlines buried in the middle of the papers so as not to upset the sensitivities of their readers. Reading those reports was horrifying, and Aziraphale, to his shame, hoped at the time that at least some of that information was overstated, as it were. 

It appears now that it hasn’t been. Worse still, the reality of it, if Crowley is to be believed, may be even more ghastly than what the newspaper reports claim. More ghastly that he can even imagine.

This… this cannot possibly be allowed to continue.

Aziraphale exhales slowly, reaches out, daring to place his hands over Crowley’s ice-cold trembling fists. “Is there anything…,” he starts, dithering nervously in the face of Crowley’s obvious distress. “Can you do anything to stop them?”

Crowley blinks, slowly, deliberately, as if coming out of a trance. Glances briefly down at their joined hands. 

“Can’t do much,” he admits, flat-voiced. “Hell’s been… suspicious after the business with the church. Something about failed discorporation of an angel. I got ‘em off my back for a bit, but they’ve been checking on me, so… Gotta be careful, you know.” He shrugs with forced nonchalance, pointedly ignoring the worried, guilty expression on Aziraphale’s face. 

“I did mess with the diesel engine at one of… one of the camps last week,” he offers with a dulled sort of pride. “Wouldn’t le’ it start. They had all these… all these people stuffed into these tiny little rooms, and the gas wouldn’t come…” He chuckles, bitter. Raises his gaze to meet Aziraphale’s. “Three hours almost it lasted. I thought they’d give up. But then…” He shakes his head, looks away. “Heard them talking. They were gonna go in there with machine guns, get the job done by hand. Would have… would have taken longer for those people to… to die. More… more painful. So I…” He pulls his hand out from within Aziraphale’s grasp, waves it vaguely about before letting it flop listlessly back down onto the cushion. “I let it… let the engine start.”

The tang of hopelessness and self-loathing is so thick in his voice, Aziraphale feels it like a tangible, stifling thing. It momentarily robs him of air. Makes his eyes and his throat burn. Makes his words come out choked.

“Oh, my dear.”

“Kill me, angel,” Crowley repeats, gruff. “Be a while before they issue me a new body. Maybe… maybe it’ll all be over by then.” He grins, mirthless. Adds, voice slipping into the timbre he generally uses for his temptations, though the effect is ruined hopelessly by its drunken slur, “Come on, angel. Disssscorporating a demon? Be a real f… feather in your… your wing. Might get a comda…commed… commendation.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. Raises both hands to gently wipe away the tears that have spilled onto the gaunt, pale cheeks. And Crowley’s mouth snaps shut, breath hitching at the angel’s touch. 

“I won’t kill you, Crowley,” he states firmly, fingers stilling as he rests them lightly against the demon’s skin. “I can’t. I’m afraid I’m…” He smiles, a bit rueful, resigned in his untimely confession. “Well, I suppose I’m far too fond of you to even consider it.”

Crowley watches him with wide, vulnerably naked eyes. There’s sorrow there and a hope and a plea. “I can’t go back there anymore, angel,” he rasps, lower lip trembling ever so slightly. “Can’t… can’t watch…. Please.”

Aziraphale nods, pondering over a spark of an idea that flares in his mind in response to Crowley’s despair. “Perhaps,” he begins carefully, “perhaps you don’t have to just… watch.”

Crowley looks away again, chagrined. “I tried the sabotaging thing, angel,” he reminds him, voice hollow with exhaustion and defeat. “Didn’t… didn’t quite work out.”

“I’m not necessarily talking about sabotage, my dear,” Aziraphale insists, shifting to try and recapture his gaze. Smiles, gentle and encouraging, when Crowley’s eyes slide back to him with reluctant curiosity. “Remember those children you snuck on board the Ark all those years ago?”


End file.
